Chapter 13

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Voice Recording 05

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Voice Recording 05

Recorded: 27th July Saturday

Bonjour, Hana!

I'm standing by your mattress and looking at your wall. There's a poem by Maya Angelou on it called Caged Bird and there's this verse I correlate with on a level too deep. It goes by:

but a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

In a way we're all caged birds, Hana, we are, but not all of us have clipped wings and tied feet, not the way I do. But here's the thing, Hana, my wings though are cut, my talons and claws have been growing sharper ever still. I do stand on the grave of my dreams and my shadow does shout on a nightmare scream. Can you say the same for yourself, Hana, the way you are pursuing your weight goals and medical dreams?

I do not think so and I would not hope so.

Do you remember, Hana, you and I once in our mischief wrote little notes for Mama and Baba and slipped it into their things here and there so they would think it was from each other? We wrote lame pickup lines on them hoping they would take out the time in their busy routines to take a breath, look at one another and smile at each other, the two of us not involved, just Humaira and Junaid, the married couple?

Your eyes shine the way stars do. ~J

Home for me is where your heart is. ~H

I must be in a museum, because you truly are a work of art. ~J

I'd say God Bless you, but it looks like He already did. ~H

Yep, it's true, the two of us would suck at flirting if it ever came to that.

But we were on cloud nine that day when Baba came home and Mama took off his tie for him while he slipped on a flower garland onto her wrist and while they talked in hushed whispers, small smiles lighting up their ageing faces, you and I stifled our giggles from their doorway. What we absolutely did not know then until they told us many years later was that we had not played them, we had not tricked them into thinking the notes were from each other, it was them who were playing us, letting us live in our ignorant bliss. Because they were Humaira and Junaid. They lived a few years together abroad until we were born, they studied together and matured into their twenties together, they knew each other's handwriting too well to be fooled by us.

So yes, we were humiliated beyond belief when we realised they knew it was us who wrote those cheesy pickup lines.

But hey, it got them together, did it not?

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